The music industry has been through various transformations, from vinyl records to cassette tapes, CDs, MP3s, and streaming music. From rare collections, music has become virtually free to many, something that a lot of us appreciate but to the detriment of recording artists and companies. (Photo: Pixabay.com)
Recently, however, there has been a few developments in the music industry and this involves the latest innovation involving bitcoins, called blockchain technology.
Three startup companies, namely PeerTracks, Bittunes, and Ujo Music, have come up with business models that aim to protect the rights of musicians to appropriate revenue. With the help of blockchain technology, every song that is created will be stored on the blockchain with its own individual ID, similar to the bitcoin.
Since its invention in 2008, the Bitcoin currency has shown immense resiliency and reliability, which has made it very easy for investors and consumers alike to trust in the convenience and security that it offers. Despite political and economic turmoil in various countries around the globe, Bitcoin has remained a safety haven for investors. For online customers, including online casino players, payments using bitcoins are made even faster than cash or credit card payments, which is why it is very easy for players to simply go for it and choose the bitcoin payment option when funding their online casino account before they start plating slot such as South Park or The Invisible Man.
PeerTracks’ MUSE
PeerTracks’ MUSE blockchain is a global ledger that is developed specifically to manage copyrights and payment systems within the music industry. PeerTracks CEO Cedric Cobban says that, with bitcoin technology, there will no longer be a need for the payment of royalties for music sales through legacy banking. Instead, the system will be revolving around MUSE USD, a cryptocurrency that will be monitoring the purchasing power of the US dollar.
Bittunes’ P2P File Sharing Technology
Bittunes main goal is to establish an independent music market through its peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing technology. Using state-of-the-art technology in digital payment systems, anyone can become a distribution channel for digital music and earn money from this. Bittunes managing director Simon Edhouse shares that this is their way of addressing the piracy problem in the music industry, encouraging users to earn profit from song purchases.
Ujo Music’s Open Platform
Ujo Music was built in partnership with the Grammy-winning artist Imogen Heap, with the objective of offering more value to content creators and the users by concentrating on building an open source rights database and payment system. Like PeerTracks, Ujo aims to transform how revenue is provided to the artists. According to Phil Barry, the founding partner at Edmund Hart, which oversees Ujo, their platform uses blockchain technology to build a “transparent and decentralized database of rights and rights owners”. This platform also automates royalty payments with the use of smart contracts and cryptocurrency.
Blockchain technology is a highly sophisticated innovation that is showing so much potential in various fields, including the music industry. Hopefully, in the very near future, these business models can benefit more artists and rights owners from all over the world.
